ROME
Washington Post
By Michelle Boorstein and Paul Farhi November 6
Gossip and internal politicking are so much a part of Vatican life that an old Rome joke goes: “In the Church, a secret is something you only tell one person at a time.”
But this week the definition of secret-spilling got blown up.
Two Italian journalists — an economics reporter for a prominent newsweekly and a muckraking TV figure — published books that used extensive leaked Vatican data to show in detail the kind of financial irregularities that in the past have come out in dribbles and rumors. And the alleged findings are dramatic, from the top Vatican official whose swanky Rome penthouse was refurbished by a church charity to the Vatican pension fund’s $800 million hole, to a report that Vatican real estate is worth about seven times as much as is reported on balance sheets.
Even for a place accustomed to leaks, this week produced a torrent, including surreptitiously made recordings of Pope Francis — a barrier Vatican-watchers said had never been crossed before. For an institution long accustomed to some standard of deference, one thing is becoming clear: The Catholic Church is in a new era.
“Cardinals living in fat apartments for free — we’ve known that since the dawn of time. But this is a new level of stuff spilling out. It’s the Catholic version of people-have-the-right-to-know,” said John Allen, a longtime reporter on the Vatican and Catholicism who is associate editor of Crux, a Catholic site owned by the Boston Globe. Of the Vatican, Allen said: “I think they’re living in a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”
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